


Prick'd Thumbs

by uschickens



Category: Sleep No More - Punchdrunk
Genre: Experimental Style, Gen, POV First Person, POV Second Person, Recipes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:51:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uschickens/pseuds/uschickens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Last night I dreamed I went to the M--------- again.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amberspyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberspyglass/gifts).



> Please see notes at the end of the work for content information, some of which may be distressing to some readers, as well discussion of spoilers and content sourcing. 
> 
> Additionally, some patrons may find it in their interest to consult the appendix in the second chapter first, as it provides several suggestions that may be helpful to creating an appropriate atmosphere for this particular tale. To see, to smell, to taste, to hear - all are consulted. 
> 
> Or not! Feel free to move about this story at your own whim. Backwards, forwards, skipping between the two - the choice, as ever, is entirely yours. 
> 
> Now. The hotel is ready. Mustn't keep it waiting.

  _Last night I dreamed I went to the M--------- again._

_Last night I dreamed I went._

_Last night I dreamed._

_Last night.  
_

* * *

 

First, you will walk. You and the other penitents, pilgrims, patrons. You walk past those who arrived before. You find your place in the procession. All of you on the same journey. You will not see any of the others again, at least not in the same way. You will not take the same path, will not end up in the same place, will not be changed in the same ways, but you are on the same journey.

The doors open.

> The darkness will swallow you. You will get used to it.

The mundanity of it all is jarring, the smiling face taking your coat - you will take nothing with you - the smiling face asking your name and giving you your key. Your key to the hotel, the evening. Up the stairs, you greet the darkness again.

> The walls are velvet-soft, and you hear the music for the first time, the music that will accompany you for your entire stay. It is heartbreakingly familiar, especially if you have never heard it before. The darkness and the violins hold you in their grasp, pushing you forward.

You emerge from the darkness, thrust into the bar. The music you heard - thought you heard - is gone, replaced with hot jazz and deep blues. The room is thick with smoke, so hazed you can barely see the stage with its empty instruments as music scratches in the background, but you can breathe easily, as easily as the absinthe slides down your throat. Your tongue is numb with the taste of licorice, green fingers of alcohol trickling through your blood, pulsing in your heart, dancing with adrenaline. You know - you think you know - what awaits you inside the hotel. You have no idea what you will find.

What will find you.

> They welcome you. They're always glad to see you, drink in hand, pressing glass into yours. They are sparks of light, fire flashing in the haze of the bar, and invitation is writ in every line of their bodies. You are most welcome. Red lips curve against white teeth, elegant fingers stretch towards you from out of perfectly crisp french cuffs, beckoning.

> Enticing.

> Tempting.

> Sometimes, the hotel, it's too much.

> You are _always_ welcome.

The card is turned, and the turn is yours. The music fades behind you, and the elevator awaits.  
  
The hotel awaits.

> Did you stretch first? You should have stretched. You may regret that second, that third drink. One is enough, just enough to unlatch the gate to reality, to blur the edges, to feed on the anticipation in your veins. Too much, and you stumble.To stumble in the hotel, at the wrong moment, is to fall.

> You do not want to fall.

 The first thing they take is your voice, then your face. You are wiped clean, replaced with death. Everywhere you turn, you are greeted by the grinning white face of death. You are surrounded. You say nothing. Can say nothing. This is the way it's supposed to go.

> Death is adjustable, you know. There's...a little thingy. You know the one. It's right behind you. It should press into you comfortingly. It should not bind, nor should it try to run away.

> Adjust it. Adjust your death to fit you better. You can, you know. They just told you how. But even if you were to ask nicely, they would not help you. They have taken your voice anyway.

> Your death is your own, and you must make it work.

They bleed you off, one by one at first, then all in a rush. You may cling and clot together, or you may seize the boldness in your heart and seek fortune. No matter. Death will find you again, always and forever. You are come death, and death is at your heels, and death you cannot escape or avoid. 

> First floor - lamps and curtains. Second floor - lingerie, women's sportswear, elegant accessories, and whiskey. Third floor - betrayal, deceit, love, loyalty, and the cafe. Going up.

 

* * *

 

The hotel is gratifying in its coyness. What is infuriating in a person can be ruthlessly seductive in a building. Each time you go, you learn more, but you will never see it all. You can't. Each room holds secrets upon secrets, and each time you bring different secrets with you. Each time as your eyes shine out from behind death, it will be different, because you are different.

You walk the streets, cobblestones underfoot, peering through windows dingy with the accumulation of years and fingerprints. There are footsteps overhead, galumphing feet making the floorboards shake, so you look up to the night sky. Full dark, no stars.

The candy is there for you. Go on, take some - licorice, the faintest hint of absinthe, butterscotch, peppermint, even all sorts - and with no one else around, you stick your hand in the jar, slip an extra sweet or three in your pocket. You will find the wrappers there later, with no memory of eating them, only a faint sweetness lingering on your tongue. Which could be the absinthe again, it can be so hard to tell.

There is so much to read, if you so choose. In different hands, bearing the signs of precision or urgency, each as may be required. Words familiar and new, stories intertwining, royalty and wives and death, always death, all to unfurl before your eyes, either through words or bodies. It is your choice how you take in the story. Here, it is always your choice. You cannot make a wrong one.

The intimacy of the hotel takes you by surprise at first, the first time, every time. You can touch  and you are privy to moments of startling, raw intimacy. You see the inside of a marriage with lies heaped on both sides, lies you have seen first hand, and you can see the core of the marriage. Why they are still together.

You see a son and father together, laughing, and you see the son laugh as he holds his father's life in the balance, razor pressed to his father's still throat. You see eternity in that moment of stillness, before the father laughs and stops his son's hand. You see them laugh again.

You see that son weep over his father's cold body, dead by a hand not his own. Kings die, and die, and die in this place. This one, though, you have not seen. You only see the death of this king in the marks his absence leaves behind. You see the grief. The plotting. The red-stained hands.

Sex is heavy on the face of everyone you see, in their mouths and eyes. Sometimes shaded with desperation, with invitation, with hunger, with murder, but it is there. There is a languidness to the hotel, the town - the world - which lives inside it, a home in which you find yourself wandering, in the writhing of the patients in the hospital, places you least expect to find it. And yet. And yet.

There is no thought that can prepare you for the moment when you are seen, when someone looks out and sees beyond death, sees you.

It is either madness or magic. The line between the two is very, very thin.

 

* * *

_I cannot see I cannot see I cannot see I see nothing I see you._

_I see you._

_I see you in this place. I see you in front of me. I see you through the strains of madness I fear creep ever closer, ever tighter around my brain and heart. I cannot see your face. I see death in its place. I reach out, fingers trembling, and you hesitate. You take my hand. Your palm is cool and clammy with sweat against mine own. I pull you closer. I place my mouth against your ear, a part of you I see, I recognize, beneath your frozen death's head facade. I tell you I have seen the face of god. It is madness. I am madness. It is madness to speak of this to you, and you are gone. You have faded back to the shadows as if I had never seen you, as if you had never been there in the first place. Are you still watching? Have you always been watching? Is the space of my madness the weight of your unseen eyes?_

_Are you alone?_

_Are there more of you?_

_Am I ever alone?_

_I do not want answers to these questions._

_I break, and I run into the forest. The trees will surround me, comfort me. The trees are my allies. I think._

* * *

 

Soon you learn to find your way not by sight or touch or taste or smell - though all four tell you where you are, indubitably, inevitably, with the powdered softness of dried flowers in her workshop, of the sawdust and sweat and spilled liquor in the bar, of the cold and earth in the graveyard, of the carefully neutral smell of the taxidermist's and funeral home, of spilled ink and desperation and photographic chemicals in the detective's office, and there, in the dark, lit only by _her_ spotlight, the smell of sweat and sex and blood, all underlaid with what your brain insists is chocolate but your heart calls liar - but by sound. Music is your map, guiding you to where you need or want to be. It is with you always, sometimes nothing more than mournful violins that call to mind icy, desperate, fragile blondes and the many ways in which they can die, sometimes with horns blazing out and driving you on, pulling you forward or pushing you away, depending on your mood. For the map of sound guides, but you do not have to follow.

When you hear voices, grown strange without practice, you want to follow. Always. If the radio kicks on, if the scratchy gramophone in the back bedroom rattles to life, or even if the sound of a woman sobbing her way through a melody reaches your ears as you stand in the middle of a forest, you will want to follow it. For voices speak of people, no matter that their words are of swallows or sweethearts or swan songs, and if you follow them, you will no longer be alone. Action great or small, it will at least be made by hands other than your own.

 

* * *

 

The ballroom is heady, dizzying. They don't see you from your perch on the balcony, but you learned the last time, the first time, the next time, that you can see ever so much better from up there. You see the patterns in the swirling mass of it all. The first time you were brought there, you pressed close on the floor, eye-level with nobility and those that serve them, those that make them serve.

> _We three. We wicked three. We clever three. We three._
> 
> _We_ see _you._

 You see the king, once and future, and his (their) entourage. You see the man and his wife, heavy with child. You see his lover and her temptress, prim and buttoned, no matter that you have seen her feed their mouths with kisses and poison, both disguised as medicine.

> Or will see? If this is the first time they have gathered in feast and song, have they kissed yet? The not-yet-mother still lives, lives again, so how can it be the first time? Time loops and redoubles on you for the first time.

> Or not.

> It's so very hard to tell sometimes.

There are three others. Three extras. At least one was here before you, and at least one will be here after. When you are at eye level, one of them catches yours, bares her teeth in a grin. You know that, given the opportunity, you would dance with her. This is not your night. You know that, given the opportunity, you would follow her. But in the break up of the dance, as the party divides and shatters, you must be swift, with no hesitation, and, to a large extent, lucky. No one in your way, no one as fleet of feet. It happens some nights, not others. Sometimes you have to dance with them what brought you.

But this, the second time through, you are perched above. You can see the shape of the dance, the intricate weavings of people and alliances, allegiances. If you step back, let your eyes slip to half-focus, you can see the pattern of the dance, each individual blurring together in a mass of bodies and black formalwear. Except for the not-yet-mother. She does not dance, and she catches your eye in her blue velvet, heavy on her slim frame, dominated by fabric and her child-to-be. And with her, through her, you refocus, see the individual tiles of the mosaic - the servant/lover slipping the mother-to-be her poison of choice against her protestations or not quickly enough for her demands, the boy with magic in his veins pressing close to the king's son and being lifted in turn, she who would be queen with the king and slipping sweet poison in his ear, another whose body throbs with magic pulling the threads of fate even tighter around the king hereafter.

The third time through, you do not attend the banquet. For while the royals spin and plot and intertwine with magic and death, there are other stories to be told. Other rooms to explore. Other magic and death to watch.

You know what happens here. Time to find something else.

 

* * *

 

Death stalks the lady, her highness, as she loses her mind. At times, you cannot see her for the death crowded around her. You follow her (them) to the top, but you back away. You have been here before. You have seen other stories, not so noble as hers, but just as beautiful. Just as mad.

At swim, two girls. Not girls, women. Compact in frame, slight in stature, but there is a strength to them both, lines around the eyes, strength in their hands that belies any girlhood. That has come and gone from these women, dressed in their uniforms.

Patient and nurse, the patient become the nurse, distinguishable only by the key to sanity. The key proclaiming sanity. It does not bring sanity with it, does nothing so obvious as unlock the gates of madness. But in the moment, in the frenzy, they are indistinguishable. In their longing, in their distress, pressing together as close as may be in the barren winter woods. There is a light, bright, institutional, and at times they seem to be harsh shadows of each other. One speaks of madness, speaks of prophecy in the only voice left to her, scrawling words beneath that clinical, sharp-edged light, telling of a dirge yet to come. Her friend, her sister, her lover, her keeper (warden) gathers her in, takes her to a small house on the edge of the woods, rocks her to comfort. Rocks her past the point of comfort, to madness. The patient leaves her nurse locked in the house, rocking in violent silence.

But not until she has pulled death in with her. Not you, not this time, but one who bears death on their face just as you do.

> You know this house. You have stampeded up stairs, through rooms, down hallways, in pursuit of magic, only to find he has locked himself in this small house, barely a hut, on the edge of a barren forest. In the distance you can see a lion, frozen, immobile.

Or perhaps it was the other way round? Perhaps it was always the nurse who clung to reality as she knew it. They traded the key, you know, at least once. In this place, this forest, this hotel, it is very hard to keep track.

With the door closed on the secrets of death and the patient within, you back away. You twist through the woods, following the drift of music. Nobility has come and gone, and the story spins on beneath you. You creep in the window of the forest, always finding new places to explore.

The communal bathroom, still bearing the marks of royal passage - wet clothes, wet handprints, wet blood.

The dormitory, small beds with the shapes of small bodies pressed into the sheets.

You don't wish to go in the padded room. You can see the marks it bears of the horrors it has seen.

You want to see everything here.

You do not wish to see this.

You do not want the door to close behind you. Not even for a moment.

> Fifth floor - outerwear, medical supplies, public restrooms. Going down. There is no going up from here. Unless there is? You have heard rumor. There are stories. Legend. The sixth floor.

> But it can't be true.

> Can it?

 

* * *

_Death arrives every night about this time. They cluster around me, jostling to watch. It is heady and frightening to have that much focus on me, to have death holding its breath and pressing closer, hanging on every word I do not speak. Some nights I'm grateful for the bar between us; some nights I wonder what would happen if I slid over the top, if I joined them on the sawdust floor of the bar. Would we drink together? Would we dance together? Would we...? Or would death back away, folding before my very presence, as if I repelled them as much as I attracted them, forever denying me their embrace? Is that_ her _plan in the end?_

_No matter. It will not be tonight. Tonight, we play the game._

_Find the lady. Four cards, one queen. It's really quite simple._

_I have been given strict instructions, and I wash down the lingering taste of_ her _lipstick with whiskey - two steps above rotgut, nothing fancy, not for me - and I deal the cards. Death watches me eagerly._

_A peek at first, a tease. Just a glimpse of her gown. I flip her over, expose her to death's hungry gaze. I flip the other three cards in quick succession, and - no. No, it's happened again. Three ladies, three queens, fix me with their coquette's gaze, and there, the leftmost but one, he waits for me. Like he waits for me every night. Death may choose, but it is me who he greets._

_The king._

_Long live the king._

_Death grins. Death has found the king._

_Like I do every night, I reach for the box_ she _has given me for this moment, death's reward. I unlock the box, slipping the key she gave me back beneath my shirt, where it presses, too warm, above my heart. Tonight it is Bushmills, older than I am, and death drinks it down eagerly._

_Death is always thirsty._

_It will not be long now. Nobility will soon knock boots in my sawdust, death the harbinger of itself. I can still see the bloodstains from the night before - or was it only a few hours ago? an hour? Is it already happening? Time never runs smooth when_ she _is about. Her lady will come to me, rough me up, make sure I know who I belong to. Not as if there were any question. Not as if I had any choice. There will be a game. Tensions will be high. Someone will die._

_I do not know if I hope for death to come to me or not. They will come, regardless._

* * *

 

There is a violence to this place, a violence that compels as much as is shocks. There is a twisted partnership to the impact of body on body. Faces twisted in anger, in hatred, in violence can so easily be mistaken for something else entirely when bodies are pressed so tightly together, to be seen almost as working together, intent on mutually assured destruction. You get the feeling that this is just the way they planned it. All of them. Even the corpses.

For the dead rise in this hotel, once, twice, but never thrice. If you are canny and wait for just the right moment, you can see life steal back into the heaving body of a corpse. You see a woman rise from the scene of her brutal murder, where her body had been slammed into the wall repeatedly, where the heir of her (lying, cheating, devoted, affectionate) husband had been killed along with her. (You know, because you have seen.) The heavy feet of death stampede after her killer, and she quietly gathers her suitcase. The porter places her fur coat around her shoulders, and all is almost as it was before. Her hair has fallen a bit, tendrils thready around her face from when her killer wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed the life of her. Her hair, not her skin, bears the marks of his passage.

Long live the king.

 

* * *

 

But does he betray her? You have seen the lady's husband locked in an embrace with the woman who feeds her milky death, though that will not be what - who - kills her. You have seen their bodies pressed together, separated only by the flimsy wood of the door. You have seen them breathe the same air, lips separated by the thinnest of air. You saw, you would swear, you saw him bridge that gap. You saw their desperation, their secret passion. You know you did.

But here you are again. Time has folded back on you, and you watch them again. This time, her loathing for him drips off of her like seawater. His desperation, her dismissal. There is no love here, only his for his fragile, obstinate wife, hers for her king. He fights for his wife, to break the thrall this woman holds over her, holds in drink and needle, that she provides upon demand or despite protestation. She has her own agenda and will not be swayed.

He crumples in defeat, not strong enough to save his wife from herself or those who mean her harm. Instead, there is the business of murdering kings for him to see to. Far more straightforward.

You stumble back against the balcony. What have you just seen? What does it all mean? Do you even know how this story will end, or will that, too, change in front of your eyes?

 

* * *

_I choose each night. How? As my whim takes me. It is_ always _my whim. Everything here, in this hotel, in this little slice of space and time, is my whim. I have three voices, who speak to  kings and tailors, to serve drinks and murder children. But to one each night, I choose to speak in my own voice._

_I have the power to remove death from their faces, and when I have chosen my most usual of suspectes, I strip their deathly burden from them. They are born again my chambers. I look into their eyes, those eyes that had me choose them in the first place, and I make them mine. I have stolen the sadness, the fear from the eyes of a girl - if they are clever, they have seen me do it, that desperate, foolish, brave girl, with lips smeared as red as my dress, my fingers, my own mouth - and with death stripped from them, I feed them that sadness. That fear. I make them mine. I leash death to my chariot, and I send them forth in the world, my words pressed in their hand. I know their steps, where they must go, what they must see. If they are fast enough, they will escape the sight of death not their own, and they will find another of my people._

_As if they weren't all my people. In one way or another._

_He will wait for death patiently behind his desk, or perhaps tidying up after the murder or three, or, if the timing is very bad, they will find him crumpled in the phone booth, limp with wanting and despair after the press of my boy's body so close to his. I told you my people are everywhere; are you surprised that I might use them against each other?_

_In any case, death will find him, my redcap, my boy for whom the bell tolls, and death will press my words into his hand. He will read them; he will make my words real. And, if the time is right, he will give death words for me in return. He will make a ship of his words, with careful folds and creases, and he will place it in death's hand. With no words at all, he will tell them how to find me._

_It all depends on timing. Before the prophecy, while I ensnare that poor, dear, desperate girl yet again, after it all, when I choose yet another mark, another soul with death inscribed across his face, when I sing to him with another voice, heart breaking at the emptiness of it all - yes, then. When all is despair and seduction, when I believe there will be nothing good to come of all these endless machinations, death will return to me, words from a world away carried to me on a ship tucked in holy palmer's kiss. I press close, tell death to wait, until they are the only ones left._

_Street empty, I pull them again into my sanctum sanctorum, the smell of dried flowers thick and heady. I strip death from them again, laugh at their - at my - success. This world is divided, individual worlds revolving around each other but never touching, but I have crossed that line. I have broached the hierarchy between hotel and stage, home and street, and I have made my voice heard. They dance to my tune, noble and common alike, though not all realize it._

_You do, though. You who I have invited into my lair, my womb, where all my schemes are given birth. I pour you tea, I tell you a story. I drop that tiny boat of words into your tea, drawing little circles on your hand, wet from the tea. Death looks down at their hand, and I laugh at their shock. It is as red as blood. It is covered in blood. Bloody hands from bloody tea during the telling of a bloody story. In their shock, I kill the lights. I drag them into the darkness, the wet, a ship hurled about on the sea of my own, treasured madness. They are limp within my arms, mine to manipulate, mine to mold. I cannot stop my laughter, my mouth pressed against death's ear, listening to them shriek with laughter in their fear. In their delight._

_While they spin, still laughing, still tinged with fear, dripping wet, I slip death back on their face. I kiss their forehead once, with blood red lips. They are marked for all to see, as much mine as my little witches, as all my little chess pieces. There will be no hiding the blood on their hands, my mark on their head._

_It all goes according to plan this night._

_The same thing every night._

_I don't need to take over the world. It's already mine._

* * *

 

Of course there is a tailor. All hotels, at least those of the highest caliber, have one on the grounds. He will knit up the ravel'd sleeve of care. You watch things unspool throughout the night, and if you are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, you can watch them spool back up. Irrevocable steps have been taken - kings nailed to the wall, books excised, stitches sewn, and if you liked, you could watch them all with careful, intimate precision. But at some point in the night, you step back. You see the careful moments you watched, each stitch, each cut, each blow of the hammer blur into dozens, hundreds of others. Each moment that felt precious and unique, happening before your eyes as if for the first time, fades into the crowd and noise of everything that has come before and, you know, that will come after. The slate is washed clean once, twice, but never thrice. Not for you. Third time's the charm.

Before the end of your stay, you will see things of which you never dreamed, things you have only ever seen before in a dream, things you will see in your dreams yet to come. You have watched the king give succor to a beast, to a man who tastes of magic. You have seen the birthing room of prophecy, when your feet may stick to the floor, discarded futures and deaths clinging to you as you pass through.

You have seen the trees advance. Some part of you remembers what this means.

You have seen the king, covered in blood not his own, not the first time you have seen evidence of death on his hands, his face.You have seen the woman in red, there through it all, though you did not know, watching, controlling.

You may choose your own path, but some things are certain. Unless you strive very hard, you will be witness to the birth of a prophecy. And you cannot escape the end. The final dinner. Yes, the last supper. Time stops, drops low, thick like honey, honey and blood. Everything takes the cast of blood, smells of chocolate. You are in a ballroom gone dark, a forest where the trees have advanced then made space for you. It is the same cast of characters, nobility lined up as if painted by Leonardo, all other stories closed and pointing you this way, ushering you like sheepdogs to this last field of battle.

In the blood-dark light, the dead arrives. Not you, not death. The dead. One whose end you have seen at least once. He bears the blood of his wounds, but his skull does not cave the way it should. Not after what you have seen. He passes behind the frieze of diners, seen only by you, by those with magic, by the mad. By the king.

The king betrays himself, cannot help but notice the dead that he has wrought. You see the faces of the others twist in suspicion, dismay, revilement. J'accuse. As if in slow motion, the crowd turns on him. Fingers stab, pointing. Faces twist, ugly in their fear and hatred.

Then, quick as treacle, the mood shifts. Hatred becomes languid sensuality. Bodies press, lips devour. The king, however. He is left out of it all. His lady, too. She arrived broken and bloody, and she has watched as control of this most unusual dinner party slips through her fingers.

And here the story changes. The detective - the son - rises, stops the king before he can leave. His highness is disoriented, unsure of this narrative shift. You can see the dazedness in his face beneath the mask of bloody handprints. But the detective - the son - ushers the king in place. He has help. It is the man with a wife no more, child no more. No child will be borne from woman to him this day, just as he was never borne of woman himself.

The noose is over the king's neck before he realizes what has happened. Awareness slowly creeps back, and the struggle begins. This man, he who has murdered women and children and friends, betrayed trust again and again, watched his wife driven mad by the paths they chose together, in the end this man still fights for his life. In the end it doesn't matter. The man torn from a woman's body, with no wife, no child - he is relentless. The detective, this son borne of woman, this boy you have watched plot and scheme and suspect and despair, provides a steadying hand. The king struggles, shouts. The man pulls the chair from beneath his feet.

 

* * *

 

And now you walk beneath the gallows, hearing the rope twist and creak in the wind, giving voice to the burden it bears. Death has come to this place, and now death leaves. Except for the body swinging overhead, all others have left, too. The faint sound of a man singing of lost love, of birds coming home to roost, accompanies your last ascent of stairs, the last creak of floorboards, the last pass through the deserted, dusty lobby. Those who guided you to the ballroom one last time, for that last supper, are gone. There are small signs, discreet. Way out. You follow the crowd. For once, you have no other choice.

The bar awaits. They await, always ready to welcome you back. You can almost taste the licorice burn of absinthe on your tongue, can almost feel the press of glass in your hand, sipping from the shape of a woman's breast, perfectly made for dancing.

> You have seen those breasts. You have seen that dance. It was not for you. She did not see you, except at the end, unless she did. You will never know.

The same music will beckon you back, the empty instruments now full to ripeness, fingers dancing on keys and over strings, the voice behind the microphone given body. It is the party you've always wanted to attend but somehow are never invited. As a guest of the hotel, you are already on the list. If there is the faintest tinge of confusion, the slightest hint of desperation around the edges of the crowd, laughing and talking over the music, drinking, drinking, drinking, well. It is the Manderley after all. What more would you expect?

People leave in dribs and drabs, then all at once. Death is stacked by the door, hastily, thoughtlessly discarded, but you may keep it, if you like. You pick up your coat, and when you put your hands in your pockets, you find your key still clutched in your hand. Aces wild. The night waits for you, just on the other side of that door.

 

_You cannot check out, but you can always leave. You must leave._

_More guests are expected, after all._

 

* * *

 


	2. Appendix - Consisting of Several Suggestions of Sensory Accompaniment to Accentuate the Delight of Your Stay at the McKittrick

First - to hear:

There are several options for musical accompaniment to your journey. If you have Spotify, several almost complete versions wait for you there. You would do well to try "Music of Sleep No More" by Westley Sarokin (shorter) or Jennifer Haviland (longer, with some duplication).

If Spotify is not your music purveyor of choice, [8tracks](http://www.8tracks.com) also has a couple of options.  [This one](http://8tracks.com/undertheironc/sleep-no-more) is more faithful, whereas [this one](http://8tracks.com/bloodmilkjewels/sleep-no-more) falls more in the "inspired by" vein.

Perhaps youtube is fare more to your taste? There is a playlist [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHYe9ddLdNY&list=PLCBC521DE8180E922), of which the first sixty (yes, sixty) videos are of music from the show, and the other ninety are additional video reference material on the show.

Alas, none of these options are truly completist. There are deleted videos, rights issues, et cetera. For a thoroughly remarkably, thoroughly thorough list of all the music within the show, heavy with plot spoilers, please refer to [this page](http://paisleysweets.tumblr.com/post/41572547344/all-there-is-the-music-of-the-mckittrick-hotel). At a bare minimum, find yourself an Ink Spots album and a Hitchcock soundtrack, and you'll have yourself the essentials.

In the meantime, cue up your musical poison of choice, kick back, and pour yourself your a libation. For reference…

 

* * *

 

To drink:

 

 

The Capistrano Swallow

**The hopelessly dull yet entirely serviceable version of the recipe -**

1 part elderflower liqueur or syrup, eg St Germain or Saft Flader from Ikea

2 parts gin

Champagne or prosecco

Ice (optional)

Champagne coupe

Mix elderflower syrup or liqueur with gin, with ice if using. Pour into champagne coupe. Top with champagne or prosecco. Enjoy.

 

**The far more interesting version, with all sorts of exciting options -**

Start with elderflowers. Alcoholic or non, the choice is yours. Do you have a head for it? Are you looking to slip into something more comfortable? Then reach for the liqueur, my friend, and pack as much booze into this little cup as possible. St. Germain is the most common (and conveniently comes in tiny bottles, should you be wary of commitment). If you're feeling daring, reach for the Bitter Truth. Or who knows; the internet is at your fingertips, and I hear it tell it can bring you your heart's desires (some shipping restrictions may apply). If you wish to keep a tighter rein on your senses, if this is the straw to your camel, if you prefer a sweeter, lighter touch, or if you have recently been struck by the urge for flat-pack furniture and allen wrenches, then by all means, hie thee hence to the land of nonalcoholic elderflower syrup. Ikea does a bang-up one, I assure you, albeit heavy on the sweetness. This has been thoroughly - most thoroughly - tested for your convenience and delight. If you do not have an endless supply of free-with-purchase allen wrenches, do consider Belvoir, Bottle Green, or Darbo elderflower cordials, available from fine internets near you. Do you have elderflowers growing near your humble abode? By all means! Pick them! Strain them! Infuse them into a simple syrup! The world is your oyster! (This drink would be delightful with oysters.)

(A note - are you using champagne or prosecco? Either is delightful; it is purely a matter of personal preference and, perhaps, price point. However, it is not a bad idea to know a little bit about the tipple you're planning on tippling. Is it sweet? dry? crisp? particularly bubbly? Mostly this is for your own edification, but I would recommend, however, that if your bubbly is on the sweeter, fruitier side, then go for the liqueur. At least from the land of flatpack, the syrup tends towards the sweeter end of the spectrum, and the Swallow should be effervescent and tart with a hint of sweetness, not cloying in the least. Unless you enjoy thick sweetness heavy on your tongue. I am not here to dictate your tastes in the slightest! I only offer the knowledge gained by your humble servant's experimentation and own palate.)

Where was I? Ah, yes. We have dealt with the flowers; hence to the juniper berries. This is a cocktail with several assertive flavors; I send you out in search of a gin neither exquisite nor close cousin to paint thinner. Leave the small batch, unique, or tippy-top shelf for another day. (Or bathe in it; I don't know your life.) Likewise, if possible, pass by the plastic bottle on the bottom shelf with 750 mL for 5 USD. That is pure grain alcohol manufactured while the distiller looked at a picture of a juniper berry and has no place in this drink. (Unless, perhaps, you really, really like elderflowers and wish for the kick of the booze without anything interfering with the sweet harmony of elderflower and grape. Again, I don't know your life. Do as you see fit!) Myself, I have a bottle of 209 that has served me well, and should I wish to get creative with herbage, particularly during the summer months, I rather enjoy Hendricks and its cucumbery astringency, despite its poor reputation among purists. Do as you see fit - find what tastes good to you, and apply it with vigor.

The bubbly - can I speak frankly? I feel that I can speak openly and honestly with you. Cards on the table, I feel you're far more likely to get a palatable prosecco at a providential price point than you are a champagne. Again, this is a cocktail. This is no time for aged anything. We're just looking for a little plonk with bubbles here. From France, Italy, California, Chile, New Zealand - do they make wine? Does it have bubbles? Is it white? It is not terribly, gaspingly sweet (according to one's preference, of course)? By gum, you've found your bubbles!

Ice - by preference, I recommend this drink slightly chilled but not ice-cold. Is your bubbly cold? Have you stuck your elderflower and gin in the freezer for five or ten minutes, or have you shaken them together with ice? You're golden! If, like me, you have terribly declasse moments, though, do not be afraid to plonk down an ice cube - at most two, in the finished drink. It will de-fizz your bubbles a bit, but it is rather nice when it is chillier, all told.

The glass. Ah, the glass. Please, if it is possible, tipple in a champagne coupe. Not flute, [coupe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glass02.jpg). First shaped in 1663, there are more stories about this glass than drinks that go in it, but one that is most assuredly true - or so the internet tells me - is that when a girl auditioned for the Folies Bergere in Paris, a coupe was placed on her breast. If the cup runneth over, alas it was in everyone's best interest if she sought other employment opportunities. There have been those who have said that a bosom of utmost perfection fit perfectly within a champagne coupe; anything less being insufficient and anything more just frivolous excess. Frankly I believe this shows a tragic lack of imagination, but in any case, it does not hurt to imagine a chest perfectly shaped to your desire as you press this glass to your lips. If you do not have a coupe at your disposal, I recommend a martini glass or old fashioned/rocks glass - something short with a wide mouth, a delightful combination in any form.

Accessories - do you like herbs and things? do you have herbs on hand? by all means, invite them to the party! I recommend muddling them in the bottom of the glass in which you mix your elderflower of choice and gin, then discarding, possibly with a single herb dancing on top of the finished cocktail, but it is as you like. I recommend rosemary, mint, or cucumber in particular. Basil is not your best option. A twist of lemon or dash of lemon juice also wouldn't go awry, should you wish for your sweetness to be a little less assertive.

Assemble! If you're fancy, chill your coupe and mixing glass. Mix your gin and elderflower, one part to two. One shot to two, a half shot to a whole - your choice. Just make sure to leave a fair bit of room in the coupe for your bubbly. If you are not overly fond of elderflower, feel free to swirl the elderflower in the glass, then discard it before adding gin to the glass. If you're muddling, muddle in a separate glass, then pour into the coupe. Once the gin/elderflower mixture is in the glass, add ice if you will. Top off the glass with your bubbly of choice. Lounge artfully; consume. Feel your heart return to you.

**The quick and dirty version  -**

One shot of elderflower liqueur or syrup in a glass. Top with prosecco or other sparkling white wine. Revel in immediate gratification.

(This, by the by, is readily available at the Manderley, should you drop by, though you will have to ask for it by ingredient, rather than name, which I fancy is of my own division. The swallows have yet to return to the McKittrick. In any case, it makes for a wonderful pre-show refreshment if your card is of a higher number. If aces are low, then my dear, hie thee to an absinthe shot and fetch death close by.)

 

**The there's-nothing-mock-about-this-tail alcohol-free-but-not-entirely-sober version -**

If possible, I strongly recommend an infusion or muddle here, rosemary or cucumber by preference. Smoosh it in the bottom of your glass, or place several slices in your water several hours before tippling. Mint is a perky last-minute addition; no need to mash. I would also more thoroughly recommend lemon in some form here, either a slice muddled with the muddlings or juice/a twist added at the end.

In a highball or pint glass, muddle if you're gonna, then add two fingers of elderflower syrup. Fill glass three-quarters full with sparkling water, seltzer, or club soda. Add ice and/or a squirt of lemon juice to preference. Top with bruised mint or rosemary. By all means, let the bubbles go straight to your head.

 

* * *

 

And finally, to smell -

**Daytime, when femininely inclined  -**

Hecate's work room: L'eau d'Issey Florale. Issey's water, with flowers. "The caress of a flower on a woman's skin." Top notes - firnat rosebud, yellow ginger lily. Middle notes - mandarin orange. Base notes - white woods. The sharp cut of a fresh flower, deepening to soft dustiness of dried flowers on the wood work table.

 

**Nighttime, when femininely inclined -**

Hecate herself, three witches twined around her: [Diptyque L'Ombre dans l'Eau](http://www.diptyqueparis.com/personal-fragrances/eau-de-toilettes/lombre-dans-leau-edt.html). The shadow on the water. A lush garden at water's edge, with blackcurrant leaves and Bulgarian rose. A bracing, sharp green concoction, with the vegetal earthiness of a tomato vine nestled against the deep sweetness of a rose.

 

**Any time, when masculinely inclined -**

The Manderley, first welcoming you with shot glass in hand: [L'Artisane Fou d'Absinthe](http://www.artisanparfumeur.com/shop/perfumes/woody/fou-d-absinthe.html). The madness of absinthe. Top notes - absinthe, angelica, blackcurrant buds, star anise. Middle notes - pepper, clove, nutmeg, ginger, patchouli. Base notes - pine needles, cistus, fir basalm. A twist on the classic gentleman's fougere, wrapped in greenness, with the hot-cold rush of anise and four spices, before settling into a resinous blend of mellow pine. Steely calm, controlled imagination, and the barest whiff of indulging in contraband. Everything a night at the Manderley should be.

**Author's Note:**

> This story features canon-typical violence, murder, and sexuality. It also features canon-typical discussion of mental health, in which madness is treated as a character trait or induced by magic, not an illness. 
> 
> As for spoilers, well. That's rather interesting with this canon, is it not? Consider yourself well and thoroughly spoiled for _Macbeth_ , with passing mention of _Rebecca_. The _Sleep No More_ material is heavily based on my own stays at the McKittrick, and as such, it includes fairly detailed description of several one-on-ones to which I've been privy. Not all of them, though. There are still some secrets kept. And, of course, this only speaks to my own experience. I have not depicted any one-on-ones or character interactions that I have not seen myself, given the wild variations in descriptions one finds on the internet. (The internet wouldn't _lie_ to me, would it?) If you read something that disagrees with your own experience, there are several possibilities: 1) I flat-out objectively got it wrong, 2) different actors (or even the same!) perform slightly different variations on every run through, every night; we may have seen the same thing through the lens of different performances, or 3) I flat-out made something up to stitch together the patchwork of scenes I've seen. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm always happy to relive my nights at the McKittrick.


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